1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to soy isolate based red meat analog products that are designed to simulate natural red meat based products.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various sources of protein, other than natural meat protein, have been used in what are known as meat analog products as a substitute for the natural meat protein based products. In order to make such analog products more acceptable to the consumer, it is necessary to provide them with a color that is as close as possible to that of the natural meat protein based products. In preparing protein based analog products which are designed to simulate natural red meat based products, the coloring agent that has been used to date, for the most part, has been monascus red. However, it has been found that the use of colors other than monascus red as a coloring agent in soy isolate based analog products made by conventional procedures produces an analog product which has an undesirable blue/brown color, rather than a desired pink/orange color.
The use of paprika extract as a natural coloring agent for food is known (M.F.R. Jolley, Food Trade Review, November 1979, Pages 648-650). It is also known to use the extracted carotenoid oleoresin of paprika as a natural coloring agent for cheese, dressings and sausage products (B. Barenstein and R. H. Bunnell, Advances in Food Research, Vol. 15., 1966, Carotenoids-Properties and Food Uses, Pages 195-276, particularly pages 246-248).
However, when A. G. Dodson and J. Beacham investigated the possible use of paprika extract as a natural coloring agent in confectionery products, they found that although the paprika could be used in such products to provide, initially, quantities of red color of a satisfactory intensity, the general commercial use of paprika in such products was not desirable, and particularly in those type products that would require relatively long light stable characteristics. Further, to obtain any useful level of color with the paprika in such products, it was necessary to use relatively high levels of the paprika extract, i.e., twenty-seven times as much of the paprika extract was required as compared to the amount of the standard color (Sunset Yellow/Erythrosine) that could be used successfully in such products. Long mixing times were also required to use the paprika in such products, and, in such cases, unsuitable levels of precipitation or cloudiness were encountered. (Technical Circular No. 733, May 1981, The Use of Natural Colors in Confectionery Products. Part VI. Paprika, The British Food Manufacturing Industries Research Association).
Further, when the present applicants initally attempted to use laccaic acid as a red coloring agent in soy isolate based red meat analog products by blending in the laccaic acid using conventional blending procedures, and in place of the previously used monascus red coloring agent, the resulting color in the product was an undesired blue/brown color.
Prior to the present invention, it has not been readily possible to successfully use a natural red coloring agent other than monascus red in meat analog products based on vegetable protein such as soy isolate to provide a temperature and light stable product having acceptable, shelf-stable, red color characteristics.